“Crackers… Diwali…. “ I tried explaining what we were looking for gesturing all the time to the keeper of the first shop we found right next to the bus stop.
“Entha?’ (What?) He questioned with almost a puzzled look. Thanks to the fiends at NIT Calicut , even we got acquainted with some regularly used words.
“Crackers ….. Bombs…… flowerpots”… my friend tried to convey.
The man got even more surprised at out question the next time. There is no fault of his either. It’s the north of Kerala and people do not fancy crackers in Diwali. In fact to many its no festival at all.
And we were in search of the crackers at such a place as this! But never ever imagined these people won’t even know the word CRACKER !
“Crackers ... bombs ….” We inquired in the next shop.
The fellow put a look as we were members of some Terror group looking around for ammunitions !
“Diwali …. Bombs… “I quickly confirmed not giving him much time to decide on our identities.
“From NIT.. Came…” I added.
You need to break the language or probably rip it apart to convey your intensions across the table. Lest otherwise it will be impossible to get information out of the crowd out here in Kerala where Hindi is almost a foreign language.
“Diwali anoo !... Westhill !...Evade illaa !” (Diwali ? Go to West hill ! not available here ) the guy finally understood the trouble we are into and suggested .
A little discussion and we were into the auto heading towards West Hill..
“I wonder what trouble we have to face in getting out stuff there!”
“Let’s see!” I said.
We came to know the fellow dropped us at quite long a distance from the spot we wanted to go as we enquired. A half a KM walk awaited us and we moved hoping to find the place soon.
Besides a 3 storied building there was a way which led to the crackers shop. Ah the most cherished!
Once at the outlet we started figuring out the naming conventions they followed to get the stuff we wanted. Finding it to be almost impossible to get tongue twist to the new words, we decided to go the normal way .. … break the language or rip it up ……..
“Flower pot’s” we declared as our first choice.
“Entha !” (what) ..
“I don’t think we will celebrate Dewali this year” I said to my friend in Telugu out of distress at the expression the shopkeeper put up.
But the next words of him which followed mine left us with no choice but to be dumb found.
“Em kaavaaloo cheppandii ( Tel what you require (in Telugu))” the shopkeeper said to us in a language known to us!
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